I Got Something Money Can't Buy
by seedyapartment
Summary: Chuck guessed that he could maybe, sort of see the appeal in sleeping with Dan Humphrey. If he squinted. ChuckNate. ChuckDan, DanNate, DanChuckNate


**I Got Something Money Can't Buy, I Got Something That You Oughta Try**  
_Gossip Girl_ fic.  
**Chuck/Nate**, Chuck/Dan, Chuck/Nate/Dan, implied Dan/Nate  
R  
N-n-n-notes: This is for **lafolleallure**, because 1) we squee loudly about all combinations of these three characters, 2) I want to appease the community coding gods and 3) she just generally kicks ass. The title is from the song "Love" by Country Joe and the Fish, because I really dig them, even though Chuck probably wouldn't.

Chuck guessed that he could maybe, sort of see the appeal in fucking Dan Humphrey. If he squinted.

Lord knows he must be well practiced in servicing others and he obviously knows how to use that pretty mouth of his. That's about where it ends.

Because Dan lived down _town_ for fuck's sake. His clothing was retail. His father was a washed up musician whose music Chuck wouldn't even pretend he'd listened to. These were the sum of Dan Humphrey's parts. Sums, these were what Chuck knew. What he lived by.

Money was important. Nathaniel could pretend it wasn't, follow his dreams all he'd like, go after what _he_ wanted until the cows came home. But Chuck had never seen a live cow, and what Chuck knew, what he knew Nate would eventually discover, was that getting the things you wanted was a lot easier with a lot of money.

Nate doesn't understand this, not yet, but what Nate _does_ get is action. Actions speak louder than words, louder than money to him, may the Bank of America have mercy on his poor, naive soul. So while it bores Chuck to the core, this soul-searching, Chuck obliges. Just this once. Because, well, Nate's fucking Humphrey, and Chuck knows the difference between the good kinds of thrills and the cheap ones.

He corners Nate behind the school, it's a tight alley, ivy-covered and dim despite the dreary daylight. They're the only ones there, and Chuck shoves his hands down Nate's pants almost unceremoniously before he remembers that he's competing with Humphrey, here; tortured, sensitive fucking _empathetic_ poet, and he slows down, kisses Nate on the mouth like Chuck knows he likes it.

Money can't buy you love, but money can buy a lot of things that help love along, the least of which being numerous prostitutes with which to hone your sexual skills at a very young age, and sex? Yeah, sex Chuck knows. Chuck wants to push Dan Humphrey down on a bed (preferably his, because Chuck's not looking for blastomycosis or whatever the fuck else might be lurking on Dan's two-hundred thread count bedsheets) and show him exactly how much having money has taught him about getting somebody else off. Instead, he shows Nate, because Nate needs to know, needs some sort of contrast point. Chuck doesn't like to be a lot of things for a lot of people, mostly he's only ever been anything for himself. But for Nate, well. He wouldn't necessarily call it a compromise if it benefits him in the end.

Chuck smirks against Nate's mouth when Nate wraps his hands around the back of his neck, twists his fingers into Chuck's hair and presses up against him _harder_. Chuck's laughing and Nate's laughing and they're sucking and biting and it's marvelous. Chuck's unprepared for the realization that he wants this often and harder and more, but he's not really that surprised, because after ten years, he hasn't yet gotten tired of Nate's company. Now that sex is involved, it's only better, impossibly better.

Chuck leaves Nate panting against the wall, turns on a heel and smiles slow and easy. "Come, Nathaniel." He says it with just a touch of seduction in his drawl, he's not without mercy. "It's past one, we should be in Chemistry."

No matter how new the feeling of Nate's lips on his is, no matter how fast the urgent want in his gut sideswipes him, his feeling of complete satisfaction as he walks away and doesn't look back is entirely familiar.

Chuck catches Dan Humphrey staring on the bus and he steps closer to Nate, catches him around the wrist. Nate glances at him, confused, but Chuck's only casting his eyes in Humphrey's direction. Except, Dan's not mad, not even phased. He simply raises an eyebrow and looks down at his book.

And Chuck needs rises out of people, out of Dan fucking Humphrey, like he needs air, like he needs the East Caribbean currency in the back of his closet, stashed there just in case. He thrives off hostility. So he scowls at Dan, makes an insulting remark specifically about the other man that is way below his usual level of wit and goes home cranky. He locks himself in his room with a bottle of armagnac and fires a maid for knocking to ask if he'd like turn down service.

He ungracefully slides into his bed at almost four in the morning, the empty bottle shattered against a wall and still wearing his houndstooth wool Gucci slacks. Nate doesn't call.

Chuck knows the sum of Nate's parts almost as well as he knows his own. Chuck's never had a great sense of reciprocity, but it's always been Nate keeping him just above that line that would make him absolutely outwardly detestable. If Nate, a genuinely nice guy, could see the good elements in Chuck's character, surely he couldn't be all that bad. Chuck's never put much stock into being a nice guy, but since he didn't often like to be one, he figures that the fact that Nate vouches for him isn't pathetic or dependent. It's strategy.

And in return, Chuck keeps him from falling. Chuck knows that Nate's not the kind of person who is able to have stable confidence in his social or financial status. Not like Chuck, whose ancestors can be traced back further than Chuck likes to ponder. Chuck, who could probably buy small islands with his inheritance and give them away without making a dent in his pocketbook. Nate's on more precarious ground, wealth that comes from marriage and bargains instead of ancestry and birth.

Since all things Chuck has ever known mimic capital, it makes sense that Nate's doing this now, allowing himself to be violated in search of something more real. Chuck gets why Nate might want to find something like that, something that might be there when his world falls out from under him, but Chuck knows that such things don't exist in tiny, dingy, Manhattan lofts. Chuck wants to be all the security Nate needs.

Chuck knows that Nate needed tutoring in English. Nate hadn't told him, but Blair had, and Chuck had only had to feign a slight interest in bettering his moderate grade to convince Miss Mulbray to spill that Dan Humphrey was the English tutor. So that was the how, then, and he'd gotten to the why.

He approaches Dan in the cafeteria, knows Nate's off dancing with old ladies or showing vile, tittering first year's around the school, whatever the sort of things that a Social Chair does. He's not around to witness this, not yet, that's not part of the plan.

"Humphrey." Dan glances up from his table, fuckable lips purse when he recognizes that it's Chuck. It's to Dan's credit that he doesn't grin, because Chuck can tell that he wants to. Resisting the urge to bring a hand to the side of his face where a ghost bruise at the hands of Dan Humphrey still lives, Chuck lowers his voice. "I need help."

"Really?" Dan asks, and now the kid really does look confused, if not somewhat interested. "And what would Chuck Bass need my help with?"

Stay the fuck away from my best friend, Chuck doesn't say, I will ruin you. He keeps those thoughts quiet. What he says is, "With English."

Dan's smarter than he looks, must be if he's more qualified than Nate for Dartmouth usher, which he was, and therefore he is able to figure out that Chuck certainly isn't interested in furthering his knowledge of Blake or iambic pentameter.

He meets Nate for Chemistry with Dan Humphrey's number stored in his phone and a leer on his lips.

It doesn't take much coaxing to get Nate off his couch and into his bed. It takes even less to get him to stay there, a few open-mouthed kisses, lazy strokes of Chuck's clever hand and Nate's clinging to his hips and leveraging himself upward. Chuck's on top, it's not like Nate knows how to take control of these things. He sucks Nate's cock for what seems like hours, until his jaw hurts from the stretch and his heart hurts from being so chivalrous. Nate makes sounds that Chuck wants to keep in his safe, lock up for his use and enjoyment only. Blair can keeps hers, Serena too, but he wants to steal the tiny whimpers and desperate moans away from Dan Humphrey. This club should be members only.

As if evoked, Chuck's phone vibrates, and if he wants this plan to work, answering is crucial. He pulls off Nate with a bored sort of eye-roll, and flips open his phone.

"It's kind of a bad time," Chuck drawls when he hears Humphrey's ice-laden voice inquire about a meeting place. "Tomorrow at eight. My suite. You do know where that is, correct?"

Chuck closes the phone seething after Dan's flippant, "Quality Inn, right?", not bothering to answer. Nate looks on curiously from the bed, hair disheveled and adorable, dick hard against his stomach. 

Chuck casts his phone aside, climbs onto the bed, and finishes what he started.

It's Chuck's territory, but it feels otherwise when Humphrey comes in through the door and dumps his free-thinking little messenger bag beside the couch.

"Am I correct to assume," Dan raises an eyebrow, "that we won't be needing the books I lugged all the way here?" He extracts a package of Marlboro's from his jacket pocket and appears to almost want to light one before thinking better of it and tossing the pack onto the pile where his bag lies.

Chuck snorts, pads across the room in his bare feet and only just refrains from glaring distraughtly at the way Dan's cheap shoes are tracking dust onto his carpet. "See, they told me you were smart."

And then it's both feet in, and they're on the couch, and they're biting each other's mouths off. Chuck manages to get Humphrey's coat removed, over his arms and tossed onto the floor. His shoes are kicked aside and his hands are rough, rougher than Nate's, more unforgiving than Chuck's on a moody day.

Dan bites and takes and fucks like he lives, rough around the edges, without a single thought about planning or consequence. Chuck, though, Chuck knows what he's doing, is in control even when he isn't, even when he hisses and swears, hips snapping into Humphrey's, neck exposed with pleasure.

He's in control even when he growls and let's Dan pin him to the bed, gnaw at the side of his jaw. Even when he spits his feelings like he doesn't mean to, "I know you're fucking him, leave him the fuck alone", and Dan's smile is venomous like he fucking knew all along that this was where Chuck was going with all of this.

Even then, Chuck's the one in control, Chuck hold all the cards, because the door clicks as it opens, and Dan's flying backwards, off of him, and Nate's staring with his mouth agape unattractively.

"Jesus," Nate says, takes a step backwards, "jesus_fuck_."

Dan just sits there, wondering how this is all going to play out, and Chuck looks at his best friend. He would shrug if it weren't so bad for his posture, but instead he grabs Dan by the wrist. "Nathaniel," Chuck laughs, "either join us or get the fuck out."

Dan looks like he might protest, and that just wouldn't be helpful, so Chuck's eternally grateful that Nate closes the door behind him with a click.

See, Chuck likes money and sums and figures he can feel and manipulate; this is how it will always be. He's been around the business world long enough to know that when you make an investment, you follow it through, and if things are going to change, you mold and ply those changes to fit your desires.

And desires, Chuck thinks as he watches Nate pull his shirt over his head and hears the hitch in Humphrey's breath, are something that Chuck knows a lot about.


End file.
